Senior Underwriter

Senior Underwriter

The Senior Underwriter reports directly to the Sr. Operations Manager – Underwriting, and directly influences loan funding by offering or withholding approval of pending deals. The Sr. UW works independently and as part of an underwriting team that is skilled at providing financing options for small and mid-sized businesses.

Primary Responsibilities

• Evaluate loan applications using a variety of reports and tools to make strong credit decisions (approval and funding amount decisions)
• Demonstrate excellent due diligence and attention to detail when processing deals by placing emphasis on time, quantity of contracts processed, and quality of contracts approved
• Make recommendations on applications to approve or decline when the application exceeds their funding authority, and be able to defend the recommendation with supporting detail
• Review and interpret Commercial and Consumer Credit reports
• Review all legal filings including UCC's, suits, judgments, liens, bankruptcies, and charge-offs and consider in the underwriting decision
• Review bank statements to confirm monthly deposit volumes, sales volumes and account balances, and note any non-revenue items, suspicious transactions and consistent payments in or out of the account
• Conduct social media searches to confirm that the business has a web presence, and relevant social media reviews of the business
• Conduct merchant interviews when appropriate to better understand the business, the potential use of funds and the overall business viability
• Review and interpret financial statements, including income statement, balance sheet and cash flow, and be able to calculate and interpret key financial ratios to understand the health of a business
• Partner with multiple departments to create best practices and to expedite loan processing
• Take ownership of funding decisions by understanding the risk/reward tradeoff and be able to support decisions with facts
• Understand current trends and patterns to recognize emerging fraud and emerging early default indicators
• Follow workflow processes to correctly identify needed supporting documentation, and perform all tasks accurately in accordance with the workflow
• Review available reporting to identify opportunities to improve the business by lowering losses, increasing approvals, lowering costs or increasing revenue

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• BA/BS in Business, finance or accounting; MBA or Master's in finance/Accounting preferred
• Minimum three years of experience in underwriting working for a reputable small business lending/funding company as an underwriter
• Extensive experience in financial analysis
• Previous experience in a lead or supervisory role is a plus
• Ability to interpret and apply lending documentation, credit reports and income/asset calculations to make credit decisions
• Strong communicator with excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Exceptional attention to detail, and analytical skills
• Exceptional organizational skills, adept multi-tasker and must maintain a heightened sense of urgency
• Proficient in risk analysis, loss mitigation and understanding of loan profitability
• Effective team player with the ability to work independently, exercise initiative and take ownership of projects, as well as work across functions to close loans
• Commitment to learn about key internal operating units at BFS Capital and how they relate to the underwriting function and how the underwriting process can be improved
• Willingness to adopt best practices and to participate in continuous improvement of the underwriting function
• Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Skype and Internet proficiency

Compensation

BFS offers competitive salaries and benefits, including medical, dental and vision insurance options.